Airpot and U-verse

February 2, 2009 8:27 AM

Have an Apple Extreme Airport and just installed Uverse from AT&T. Uverse installs a wireless router that provides a Wi Fi Network. What is the best way to connect the Airport to that router? I want to use the Airport for its printer connection and for hard drive connections.

Can I just add it wirelessly to the AT&T network in bridge mode and still use the printer connections? The AT&T router is in another room from my Airport so I would like to connect without a cable if possible.

posted by jjcurtis to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Depends. If the AT&T network supports WDS, as mentioned in this Apple support article then you should be able to. Otherwise, probably not.
posted by odinsdream at 8:47 AM on February 2

use airport utility to set up the extreme to join the wireless network. It won't give you extended range but the USB port should be able to serve printers. The trick in getting it to join usually involves the password. If it's a 10-digit hexadecimal WEP key, use a '$' at the beginning of the password when you put it into Airport Utility.
posted by kid_dynamite at 10:11 AM on February 2

Keep in mind that, at least for the hard drive connection, introducing another 'hop' in the device chain can have a horrendous impact on data transfer performance to the peripheral. So much so that Apple recommends you do not do this if you're using Time Machine to back up over the wireless. But if you don't have high data use you may not notice a difference.
posted by squid patrol at 11:59 AM on February 2

If you want to use the ethernet port on the Airport, you'll need to join it to the AT&T router's wireless network in WDS mode. Since (afaik) the WDS 'standard' isn't yet (standardised, that is...), that may not be possible.

If you just want to use the USB ports (& Airtunes) on the Airport, then you should be able to set it up in client mode ("Join a wireless network" in the wireless tab of the Airport Utility).

Info: at least with the Airports, to have any chance of connecting 2 different devices in WDS mode, you need to have the security set to either "WPA" or "WPA/WPA2 Personal" - WPA2 alone won't work.
posted by Pinback at 4:08 PM on February 2

Is there not any wired ethernet ports on the uverse wifi box? (Sorry, I don't know what it looks like). Then you should just be able to run a patch cable between the airport and the uverse box, and just shut the uverse wireless off, use your airport to manage the wireless (turn off dhcp on the airport). That will remove any wireless -> wireless issues (which can be problematic, and you can get some serious slowdowns)
posted by defcom1 at 6:02 PM on February 2

nevermind, didn't read the more inside!
posted by defcom1 at 6:03 PM on February 2